THE AMERICAS
Big news of the week was Groupe Bernard Tapie walking away (or being chased away) from its bid to acquire Full Tilt Poker, followed quickly by rumors that PokerStars had sealed its own deal to buy the troubled poker company; Las Vegas Sands became the first gaming company to top $1b in quarterly earnings, but CEO Sheldon Adelson still hates online poker; Zynga’s quarterly revenues rose but Vince Martin suggests the company’s real-money gambling ambitions are a pipe dream; Facebook’s IPO has been pushed back; the Florida Supreme Court cleared the way for gambling expansion; California’s sports betting bill unanimously passed a Senate committee but California’s Indian tribes declared the state’s online poker bill DOA; two New Jersey lawmakers asked for federal support of their sports betting bills; financial report cards were handed in by Boyd Gaming, International Game Technology and Bally Technologies; Black Friday stool pigeon Daniel Tzvetkoff was spotted crapping himself on a New York City street and the Two Plus Two poker forums were hacked and taken offline, forcing many internet tough guys to actually leave their basements and try their luck insulting perfect strangers to their faces for a change.
EUROPE
888 Holdings’ financials continue to impress; also turning in report cards were Betsson, Probability, Gaming VC Holdings, Net Entertainment and NetPlay TV; Playtech finally revealed what it spent £95m acquiring from founder Teddy Sagi; social gamers Slingo are talking with UK companies about real money play and Media Corp’s Purple Lounge was taken offline without much explanation.
ASIA
Galaxy Entertainment’s market value topped those of competitors SJM and Wynn, so it’s a good time to double the size of the Galaxy Macau; China’s internet population is big and getting bigger; Laos put the kibosh on casinos in the Boten border region with China; Facebook desperately needs an Asian strategy; the Philippines hopes to nick 10% of Macau’s market by 2016; BoyleSports wants to launch in Asia before the next Premier League season; trophies were handed out to the winners of the Asian Poker Tour Philippines main event, the Manila Millions super high roller tournament and to CalvinAyre.com reporter Tatjana Pasalic’s makeup artist.
